


_State of Play

by glenarvon



Series: _Brilliancy [22]
Category: Watch Dogs (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Social engineering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-06
Updated: 2015-02-06
Packaged: 2018-03-10 16:45:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3297407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glenarvon/pseuds/glenarvon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not all allies are willing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	_State of Play

**Author's Note:**

> I've got to be honest, Aiden's manipulative and threatening side is an immense turn-on. This is also probably the closest I'll come to Aiden as he's written in Dark Clouds. While I don't exactly dislike his characterisation in the novel, he really is a much bigger jerk in that version to the point where he's losing some of his nuance.
> 
> **The story so far:** The Indigo State featured in the Nightcall story of the same name. To whit, it's an independently owned nightclub that serves as cover for a ctOS-proof marketplace, a business model developed after Lucky Quinn's blackmail material could no longer guarantee Blume and the police looked the other way.

[takes place in spring 2015]

* * *

 

At twenty-eight, Daniel Lowry considered himself a made man. He'd turned a failed career in professional sports into a sizeable fixer income and that experience into a solid, well-paying job as bouncer-slash-bartender in the Indigo State. He got things sorted out in his life. At peace with his father at long last, his sister safely in rehab and several nicely packed bank accounts ready for his old age. He'd never bothered being secretive with his preferences, either, less stressful that way and while the mob's natural machismo still got in the way sometimes, even a mobster bit back his dumb jokes if you hit him hard enough.

Everything was good.

A week earlier, he'd met a guy in his favourite hangout and, in retrospect, it was just amazing how wrong a first impression could be. Of course, it turned out he'd been deliberately misled, but he couldn't feel particularly good about that. The man had sat at the bar one late afternoon, somewhat older than the place's usual clientele and Daniel thought he recognised the type. Recently worked up the courage to come out of the closet and the wife took everything in the divorce as a result. Now, he was struggling to find his footing again, not quite sure if he liked this new liberty, insecure inside his own skin, but determined to figure things out.

Or that's what Daniel thought, anyway and the man had been so easily evasive on the subject, Daniel had just taken his own assumptions as facts. It was a good act, too. _Aiden…_ should've tipped him off, of course, and there was even something passingly familiar about his face, but Daniel had dismissed it as some weird coincidence. This Aiden had too much shy charm. And it was quite shocking just how much a mere pair of glasses changed a man.

_This_ was not how he had pictured it. Not at all. Not in the slightest, but some residue of attraction was still there, as he found himself pinned against his own fridge by an outstretched arm and skewered in all other ways by sharp green eyes. He fidgeted away, but the arm didn't give him much room to move and those doubtlessly strong fingers rested far too close to his throat. It would be easy to shift that grip, he knew, easy to crush the breath from him.

His demure conquest had shed his skin, without much advance warning when he'd come into his kitchen, tossing a flash drive to the table and outlined, calmly, what it meant for Daniel and what he would have to do to get out of it alive. Stunned, Daniel's brain had to play catch-up for a full minute, trying to comprehend where this cold-eyed bogeyman had even come from.

The problem was, while Daniel thought he'd been dating, what the flash drive _documented_ was a series of more or less covet meeting between him and the vigilante.

Daniel had been in this game for long enough. He'd been a fixer and faced with a threat, his first and only instnct was to fight back. He had a shotgun stashed in his kitchen and he went for it before most of the gravity of the situation had even trickled into his consciousness. The information on that flash drive could break his life apart, but if he brought home the vigilante's head on a spike… now that was a different story.

Daniel knew he was fast _,_ but he might as well have been moving in slow-motion. He'd barely got his fingertips on the metal of his gun, never had a chance to bring it around, because Pearce wasn't just faster, he dispatched Daniel with a trained efficiency that left him reeling, a point of numbing pain in his elbow and crawling up to render his shoulder useless. He'd suffered a kick to his knee and it'd buckled. Pearce had picked him up and pushed him into the fridge with laughable ease. It wasn't like Daniel hadn't _looked,_ the man was in perfect shape, up until now, it had been a very attractive feature.

"Fuck you," Daniel forced through clenched teeth.

"No, sorry," Pearce said. He glanced to the side and gave the shotgun a kick, made it slide across the floor and out of easy reach, even if Daniel somehow got free.

"Can we talk now?" Pearce asked, cool gaze digging into Daniel.

"Fuck…" Daniel started and was choked into silence. The pressure lifted again immediately once he fell silent. He narrowed his eyes and tried to take a steadying breath, not that it was doing him much good. He forced his body to relax and finally Pearce let him go, stepped away and retrieved the shotgun while Daniel was still getting himself sorted. There was a brief opening when Pearce picked up the gun, but Daniel wasn't stupid enough to try anything. Their first scuffle had made it quite clear who was in charge.

Pearce put the gun on the table, glanced back at Daniel and pulled a handgun from its holster at his shoulder, put it on the table beside the shotgun and took a very deliberate step away.

Daniel watched uncertainly, gaze skittering away from the guns and at Pearce, who gave him a short, unpleasant smirk. "In case you're feeling lucky."

Though he voiced it as a challenge, but it really was just an insult. Daniel stayed where he was, slowly massaging his shoulder and putting all his weight on his good leg.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"Whatever's in the basement of the Indigo State."

Of course that's what he'd want. Everyone, starting from Haugh downward, in the State had a healthy dose of paranoia regarding any potential vigilante intervention, or at least, that's how Daniel had thought of it. There'd never been any doubt the vigilante would sniff out the place eventually and come calling. Daniel hadn't expected to be the weak link, though, and he obviously hadn't been nearly paranoid enough.

"I can't get you in," Daniel said.

"You won't have to," Pearce shrugged. "The place is shielded, can't get any signal through the ceiling and the walls, there's nothing I can do about that. But I can still get a look inside, you'll just have to carry everything in and out."

"No."

"Have you been listening?" Pearce demanded with calculated impatience. "What do you think will happen if Haugh learns of our acquaintance? What's he going to think?"

"Haugh isn't stupid," Daniel said. "I'll explain. I won't let you leak this shit to him, I'll take it to him myself."

"Yeah, and he's going to believe you," Pearce agreed, but he seemed entirely too sure of himself. "But he won't take any chances. The thing about the Indigo State, what I can figure out, it's a very risky truce. Upset that in any way and it comes crashing down. Haugh can't take the risk, even if he trusts you. The others, from Club to Pawnee Militia, they won't. And they're all running scared of me. There's nothing they wouldn't do to keep me away."

Daniel opened his mouth to argue, but couldn't come up with anything good. Pearce had a point, unfortunately. It was hard to tell just how much he really knew about the Indigo State's basement operations and how much was conjecture and guesswork, but he'd got it figured out quite accurately. The men who frequented the State, they were slow to trust and quick to judge. There was no enforceable law down there, it worked because everyone involved found it expedient to play along, because no one liked the thought of ctOS watching their dirty business.

"I won't get anything in," Daniel said. "Security's too tight."

He tried to relax some of his muscles, scooted to the side slowly, leaned against the kitchen counter, taking more weight off his hurting knee.

"You'll find a way," Pearce seemed unimpressed. "And I got a bunch of very neat toys."

"Why me?" Daniel asked, though he didn't especially care.

"Everyone's got a weakness," Pearce explained and surprised Daniel a little. He hadn't expected Pearce to be open about his game-plan, or perhaps it _was_ part of the plan and Daniel just didn't get it. "With you, I first thought I'd get to you through your skank sister. Recovering drug addicts are easy targets, but it didn't look like it'd get you to do what I need."

"Leave Cassie out of it," Daniel snapped, but it was reflex, not conviction, he was pretty sure it showed just how tired he was of looking after her while she pissed away every new chance he worked out for her.

"I am," Pearce assured him. "You'd feel guilty, but she wouldn't get you to move."

"So you hit on me?" Daniel asked, scowl sneaking up on him.

"Seemed the easiest way," Pearce shrugged. "It took me a while to figure out what to do with my celebrity status. It's a pain, most of the time, but if it works I'll take it."

Daniel looked away from him, at the flash drive. Without that celebrity status, the records on that thing wouldn't have nearly the same impact, it'd still be a problem, but one he might be able to talk himself out of. As it was, Haugh would recognise the vigilante right through his affected warm smile and unnecessary glasses. Unlike Daniel, Haugh would know exactly who he was looking at.

"You don't just want intel, do you?" Daniel said. "You want to tear it down."

Pearce laughed, clipped short and abrasively dry. "What do you think?"

"What are you going to do?"

"We'll see," Pearce said. "Now, are you in?"

"I get a _choice_?" Daniel sneered.

"There's always a choice," Pearce shrugged again. "You can go for the gun again, or that knife you keep fingering for behind your back."

Caught, Daniel stilled abruptly. Pearce continued, "Maybe you'll get lucky with Haugh, maybe you don't. Or you take your chances with me. If you play it smart, no one's ever going to know. Maybe I'll even pay you a bonus."

It was a steak knife, left there from yesterday's dinner. Daniel didn't think he could throw it accurately, but its serrated edge would leave an ugly wound if it tore through skin. Pearce was right, skill wasn't going to cut it — literally, as it were — but luck just might. He almost did it, too, but the problem was, Daniel wasn't dumb enough to. It annoyed him how Pearce probably knew exactly that. He hadn't really explained how he'd figured out Daniel was a good choice, some manoeuvring would have brought any one of his co-workers in the same or at least a similarly compromising position. Pearce had picked Daniel because Daniel had a background as a freelancer, an opportunist, someone willing to look for his own advantage.

Daniel had even _told_ him as much, when he'd still had completely different assumptions about where their relationship was actually going.

Pearce didn't wait for an answer. He picked up his pistol and put it away. Unconcerned, he turned to go.

"I've got your number," Pearce said back over his shoulder from the door and left.

Once he was gone, the first thing Daniel did was curse, loudly. Himself and the vigilante and Haugh and everything else he could think of. He punched the fridge and for a long, insane moment he contemplated picking up the shotgun and running after Pearce. He'd gun him down on the stairs, consequences be damned. The man was too sure of himself, there must be hundreds of things he never saw coming.

He was going to be right about this one, though. Daniel didn't go after him.

* * *

Daniel felt like a fraud, equipped with the vigilante's high-tech toys, no matter what he did. The feeling dogged him through his days, until it was actually _weeks._ It became a kind of routine that he'd upload whatever he'd recorded throughout his working evenings and nights, Pearce didn't even have to prompt him to do it anymore. It was the deal and he'd sealed it. This way, at least, he didn't have to see or hear Pearce much and was spared the unpleasant reminder of just how badly he'd been played.

It was all Haugh's fault, he decided one early morning, sitting in his kitchen after he'd come home, smoking one cigarette after the other, waiting to finally feel tired enough to go to sleep.

Haugh had equipped that stupid basement with state-of-the-art detectors and layers upon layers of insulation. He swore to any client, up and down and sideways, that _no one_ would ever survey anything that went on in the basement of the Indigo State. Bullshit, obviously, all of it. Nothing but a sales pitch. The tech might have made it slightly harder for the vigilante to get what he wanted, but it was working out all right for him, as far as Daniel could tell.

He stubbed out the cigarette and watched the last bit of smoke disperse into the air. Early morning light had begun filtering in through the blinds, looked like it was going to be a beautiful day in late spring. Warm and sunny… and maybe he should just march up to Haugh and spill everything.

Just Haugh, no one else needed to know, they could _use_ this against Pearce, feed him a thousand false pieces of information, lead him on endlessly on some wild goose chase until he managed to break his own neck in some stupid mistake or other. Everyone made mistakes, even this guy. He had too many enemies, surely one of them would pay good money for this kind of access.

The question remained, though, the one Daniel couldn't solve for himself. He _thought_ Haugh wouldn't put a bullet through him, but he wasn't certain of it, not enough to stake his life on it and he'd been digging himself deep these last few weeks, too.

His laptop switched itself on and Daniel turned a dull eye toward it. He reached for another cigarette while the machine booted. He lit up and watched indifferently as the login screen flared up and immediately closed down again to show his desktop. He'd tried changing the password, early on, but that hadn't seemed to make any different. He had taken petty revenge by setting it to 'foxes are vermin', but he wasn't even sure Pearce ever saw it.

Pearce's face appeared on the screen, mercifully only in windowed mode this time.

"Gonna put tape over the cam," Daniel muttered and took a long draw off the cigarette, not quite looking directly at Pearce.

"Be my guest," Pearce said, deep voice turned metallic and hollow through the laptop's mediocre speakers. "What's that big thing Haugh mentioned?"

Daniel drew on the cigarette again, took his time before he answered. "No idea," he said. "Haugh just said something big's going to go down. Niall Quinn will be there. Some guys from the Militia and somebody from the Chinese. Not like Haugh tells the hired help everything."

"Yeah, but you've worked for him for years," Pearce pointed out. "You were one of the first he recruited for the Indigo State. He trusts you."

"I don't know anything," Daniel shook his head. "Look, Haugh isn't chatty, not with anyone. It's also not a nice work environment down there. Nobody trusts anyone. I don't know shit and Haugh probably only knows a little more shit."

"Your best guess, then."

Daniel took a deep breath, held his cigarette in front of his face and watched the embers at the end fade. He could forego sleep for a while longer, fix himself a coffee and head to the gym instead. Maybe it'd clear his head. Maybe give him something to _hit._ He could download a picture of the vigilante and pin it on the punching bag…

"Quit wasting my time," Pearce interrupted.

"Or what?" Daniel asked, pulled his eyebrows up as far as they would go. He put the cigarette back in his mouth, leaned his head back as he drew in the smoke. "You'll just find someone else?"

"It won't matter for you," Pearce said darkly. "If you want to terminate this collaboration, you're less dangerous to me if you're dead."

"Didn't you say something about a bonus?" Daniel faked a hurt frown. "When you were still trying to make nice?"

" _After_ we are finished."

"When's that gonna be?"

"When I say so."

Daniel decided he'd pushed hard enough, any more of it and Pearce probably would make the laptop blow up in his face, or something equally dramatic. He took a last drag off the cigarette, then put it to balance on the edge of the ashtray and settled his arms on the table, leaning forward

"I don't know," Daniel said. "But my guess is, something about Blume. Militia runs security for Blume, at least the dirty end of it. I don't understand what's going on on that side, but Blume's the only connection between Club and Militia I can think of, guys hate each other's guts."

"Turf war," Pearce nodded. "I know. What about the Chinese?"

"The Chinese, right? Sounds like industrial espionage to me," Daniel shook his head. "Everything's always short notice, too. So things will go down tomorrow at the lasted, maybe even tonight."

"That's not much to go on."

"Well, it's all you'll get. I don't know anything else," Daniel snapped, long since out of patience.

Pearce actually smirked. Probably the least pleasant expression Daniel had ever seen from him. From the direction of Pearce's gaze, he was doing something else on his own computer, barely looking at Daniel.

"From _you_ ," Pearce said. "I never said I had no other sources."

There was another short pause while Pearce apparently did something with those 'other sources', then he looked directly at the camera again and Daniel still managed to be a little surprised at just how intimidating the man could be miniaturised to a third of an already small screen.

Pearce said, "We need to meet before you head into work."

"I got the night off," Daniel pointed out, but he already knew how well this was going to go over.

"Yeah, make something up," Pearce said, entirely predictably. "You're in the State tonight."

Daniel waved him off irritably. "Sure, no problem, whatever you need, I'm here to serve. Are you going to come by?"

Pearce bent him another acidic smile, but didn't deign to answer. Daniel saw his gaze drop to his keyboard and a moment later, the window filled with black, then closed itself.

Daniel sat for a moment in silence, considering what he would've done if Pearce _had_ really agreed to a fixed date, the kind that gave Daniel some advance warning and a chance to actually _reach_ the shotgun.

In an afterthought, Daniel put his hand to the top of his laptop and snapped it closed.

* * *

Arrogance, Daniel decided, was the vigilante's weakness. Sure, projecting invincibility probably meant fewer people were willing to try him, but it wouldn't bring him out on the other side of complicated plot like the one he'd roped Daniel into. Besides, the best way to deceive others was to deceive yourself and Pearce seemed to have that one down pat.

In the end, it'd break his neck. Daniel entertained the thought for quite a while, while pinned down behind the bar counter in the basement of the Indigo State and trying very hard not to look as the time ticked away on his phone.

Of course, for any member of the criminal underworld, Pearce had never quite had the halo the wider public had outfitted him with. It was too easy to see what tools he was using, the methods and underlying disregard for life, limb and sanity of everyone around him. To people like Daniel, Pearce had always only been a very dangerous, very capable loose cannon. Someone you took down the moment the chance presented itself, because this brand of driven focus never burned out on its own. Pearce wasn't going to stop until someone made him.

And that _someone_ quite obviously, wasn't going to be Daniel. He wasn't greedy enough for the glory and he wasn't stupid enough to miscalculate the probabilities. Even if he wasn't as untouchable as he pretended to be, Pearce was still damn good at what he was doing.

Some hand-wavey explanation about needing some extra money had had Haugh let him work tonight, but Quinn and the rest didn't seem to be showing up.

The room that'd been reserved for Quinn, the largest of the too small basement rooms, was currently occupied by a nervous looking business man and a fixer. A hit contract, by Daniel's guess, nothing spectacular at all. Some minor gangs were in another room, negotiating a truce, or maybe an alliance so they could take out a bigger bite out of Viceroy territory.

All in all, it seemed a somewhat slow night.

Daniel looked at the phone.

Was Quinn's absence good or bad for the vigilante's plan? He hadn't seemed to care either way, but Daniel had no way to know what the man's other sources had revealed.

"Lowry."

Daniel startled, picked up the phone and shoved it out of sight quickly. He concentrated on the glass he'd been clutching and pretending to polish for the last few minutes. Haugh had materialised right in front of him, or at least that was how it felt like. Haugh looked displeased and vaguely worried, but Haugh always looked like that.

"Yep," Daniel said, put the glass away and reached for the next.

"Something up?" Haugh eyed him. "You're jumpy tonight."

Daniel looked back at him as earnestly as he could.

"Didn't get much sleep yesterday," Daniel said with an apologetic smile. "Makes me tense."

Haugh kept scrutinising him and Daniel had no idea if the excuse was working or not.

At the edge of his vision, he just about saw as the number of the phone change, but he couldn't make out the precise digit. How much time was left? Less than ten minutes?

"Keep your head," Haugh finally said. "Need it in the game."

Daniel nodded, biting his tongue inside his mouth and Haugh tapped the counter before he left. Daniel stared after him, wondering if this had been the moment, if it had come and gone, for him to come clean.

Perhaps he really was just a coward. Didn't have the guts to take on Pearce on his own, didn't even just tell him to go to hell with his damned blackmail. What was the worst that could've happened? He could've packed his bags and just _left,_ plenty of work for a fixer anywhere in the country. He hadn't needed to stay and play the vigilante's game.

He put the glass away and rubbed his hand down his face.

"Shit…"

Through the gaps in his fingers, he saw the time on the phone, saw the number change again.

"Hey, Lowry!" someone called from the door and Daniel snapped to attention immediately. He glanced up to see a fellow bouncer in the doorway.

"What?"

"Haugh's busy, wanna take a cigarette break?"

Less than five minutes, that was what the clock was saying, seconds ticking away at the back of Daniel's head, little hammers beating away at his nerves. And here was a chance to be outside when it all went down — perhaps literally — outside and safe and seen to be innocent by anyone involved.

Not as innocent as he'd appear if he stayed.

"Nah," he said. "'bangers want a round of shots to seal the deal. Gonna take care of that, sneak away later."

The other man shrugged, in leaving he said, "Okay, your loss."

Passively, Daniel watched him go, wished to god he'd closed the door again, but he probably wasn't going to make it. His gaze glued to the phone, Daniel put his arm down on the counter in front of him and with a sudden sweep, brushed several glasses to the floor. They shattered in a heap of gleaming shards.

Playing to an audience he almost certainly didn't have, Daniel cursed, threw the towel over his shoulder and crouched down.

He counted off the last seconds, but he must have got it wrong after all, because he was at 'four' when the world just broke around him, deafening darkness crashed over his head, taking everything away.

* * *

He wasn't dead, it become clear pretty quickly, because he was pulled back to consciousness by the steady, insistent ringing of his phone. The sound came from far away, but somehow managed to distinguish itself from the ringing in his ears that blanked out all other noise.

He opened his eyes carefully and took stock of his surroundings before he attempted to move. The explosion had torn a hole in the wall opposite him, turned the bar counter into a pile of firewood and heaped it over him, boxed him in against the wall. The air was thick with dust and smoke, difficult to breathe. He saw licks of fire from the hole in the wall, eagerly lapping around its edges.

The phone kept ringing.

Daniel forced himself to his hands and knees, shaking free of the wood. He'd set his hand in the broken glass he'd made before, but the pain, like the noise, was a distant thing. The shockwave had thrown the phone away and it had landed on the floor a little away, surrounded by unidentifiable pieces of debris.

Moving slowly, Daniel picked up the phone, it was almost a reflex, he didn't feel like he was thinking straight at all.

_"Daniel."_

Pearce's voice, he wasn't even surprised.

"You'll have to shout," Daniel remarked with a calm he probably shouldn't feel. He pulled himself upright on a broken chair, tried to breath, but only managed to choke himself.

_"You need to head up. Right now. I don't know if the ceiling will hold."_

Daniel thought he should be more frightened, more in pain, more of _everything._ He felt like he was wrapped in cotton, as if nothing could get quite close enough to him. He picked a careful path through the debris, just about remembered to keep away from the fire. Everything was covered by dust and smoke was filling the basement rapidly.

As he passed the room where he'd planted the bomb, he stopped and shuffled around. There was some odd pain in his leg he couldn't identify. He reached out and massaged it carefully, his hand came away bloody. He flexed his foot experimentally, but it seemed to be functioning fine, so he pushed it to the back of his mind.

The room was devastated, lit only by angry, dark flames. Part of him was almost disappointed by the complete absence of body parts and other gore in that room, but perhaps if you stood this close to a bomb, you ended up in much smaller pieces.

_"Keep moving,"_ Pearce yelled in his ear. _"Upstairs caught fire and there's a panic. You need to get out."_

"So you _do_ like me," Daniel muttered. He barely heard himself, but he started walking again, found the stair buried under more debris, shattered parts of wall and ceiling, Haugh's vaunted security system was all bent out of shape, uselessly thrown in his way in a feeble attempt to trip him.

_"Turn right on top of the stairs,"_ Pearce said. _"Make for the north-eastern fire exit."_

He lacked the energy to question the directions, besides, it was as good as anything. He needed to go _somewhere,_ might as well do as he was told. He hadn't been doing much else these past weeks, anyway.

It took some effort to push through upstairs. While the blast itself had done comparatively little damage to the nightclub itself, the power was cut and plunged everything in darkness, fostering the panic any bomb explosion would cause anyway, a mess of people and smoke, getting in Daniel's way.

The fire exit had been found by few other people, but most seemed to be pushing for the main doors.

Daniel stumbled outside and the fresh air seemed to hit him over the head, make him slump into the nearest wall and slide down with his back pressed against it. He'd lowered the phone, he'd drop it if it didn't require more effort than just leaving it where it was. He could faintly make out Pearce's voice, but he couldn't understand what he was saying.

After a while, he seemed to give up. Good on him.

He was aware of people milling about, but they made no sense to him. He heard sirens, very far away and thought it was about time. He felt like he'd been sitting there for hours, just… being. Until he was roughly pulled from this malleable sort of revery, paying attention to all the tiny points of pain in his body and idly wondering when they would increase and suffocate him.

His arm was gripped, hard enough to leave bruises, if he didn't have them already, and he was yanked up, where he stood swaying as if he was drunk.

It brought him face to face with Pearce. He didn't bother trying to read in his face, there was nothing he wanted to see. He tried very hard not to sag into Pearce's arms, but his legs were unreliable and he could do nothing but stumble along.

"Let's go," Pearce said and Daniel let himself be steered away from the Indigo State and through a winding series of back alleys until Pearce shoved him into the passenger seat of a car.

"You'll want to stay awake," Pearce said as he started the car, but it was difficult, the low humming of the engine and the softness of the seat was too inviting. He drifted off and it didn't matter, but Pearce had to go and ruin it all again by opening the windows and dragging him upright in the seat several times.

* * *

He must have passed out at some point after all, but when he woke, he was stretched out on a hospital bed in a dark room. This time, everything hurt, but his mind was clear again. Light spilled in through the open door, outlined the vigilante's tall shape in perfect black.

"Why did you save me?" Daniel asked.

"I owe you a bonus," Pearce said. "It's on the table beside you."

Daniel glanced down and he could make out a bundle of money, but it was too dark to gauge how much it was. A generous couple of thousands, he supposed, because it wasn't just payment, it was hush-money.

"Yeah, thanks," Daniel groaned and let himself fall back. "This isn't a hospital, is it."

"No, acquaintance of mine, something like a doctor."

"You could've just left me," Daniel said. "Why bother?"

Pearce didn't answer immediately and his face was in shadow, but his voice sounded almost amused. "You managed not to die in the blast, I couldn't risk you telling anyone the wrong things while you were too out of it to know what you were doing."

"Why not just kill me?"

"You sound disappointed," Pearce said.

Daniel took a breath. "You are the vigilante."

"Yes."

Daniel didn't mind the silence, he didn't care if it was awkward and needed to be filled, he was too tired and he hurt too much for that.

"Will you tell me something?" Daniel asked.

"What is it?"

"What was the point today?"

He sensed Pearce shift a little, changed his posture against the doorway. Daniel didn't look at him.

"You tell me," Pearce said, still oddly amused, or maybe it was just Daniel's perception of him.

Daniel heard himself laughing, the sound scratched his throat and hurt his stomach as sore muscles tensed.

"That big thing, everyone will think they were the target and everyone will think one of the others did it. Or maybe Viceroys, because they were left out. Or the Russians trying to move back in over Quinn's weakness. Shit like that. But don't think no one will look your way."

"Doesn't matter," Pearce said. "Haugh's business model went up in flames, there won't be another."

"Are you through with me now?" Daniel asked. The only thing he still managed to give a fuck about, really, at least for now. The only thing he really wanted to do was go back to sleep, find some oblivion. Maybe this doctor-acquaintance of Pearce had something to help him with that.

"Yes, I am," Pearce said. He detached himself from the doorway. "You'd better not cross my path again. And you'd better keep your mouth shut."

Daniel lifted a hand and waved it back and forth limply, dismissing the threat.

"What do you think? I'm going to run up to Haugh and tell him the vigilante blackmailed me to plant a bomb under his ass? Not even just to spite you."

"Good," Pearce said and turned away. His shadow in the doorway didn't linger, didn't hesitate and the man who cast it, didn't stoop so low he repeated the threat. Daniel heard him stride down the hallway, faintly heard him talk with someone. The sound of a door and the light in the hallway went out, silence following in the wake of darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> **Revised on 31/May/2015 and 10/May/2017**


End file.
